


So a Cyborg Walks into a Bar, and This Cowboy Says "Hey Man, Haven't Seen You in a While."

by oldjosjos



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Post-Fall of Overwatch, do they kiss? you decide, the love is up to you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 20:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12465208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldjosjos/pseuds/oldjosjos
Summary: We open on a cold, wet, lonely night, in some big expensive city. Jesse and Genji hadn't seen each other since Blackwatch. It was high time they ran into each other again.





	So a Cyborg Walks into a Bar, and This Cowboy Says "Hey Man, Haven't Seen You in a While."

Was I a fool for shelling out $30 of my own hard-earned cash for two beers? Maybe so. But no one ever said happiness was cheap.

“For what I’m paying, this stuff better kill me,” I said.

The bartender glared at me and walked away.

Lonely. That’s how I’d been feeling for a while. I’d been spending too much time in big cities where no one could look each other in the eye. I couldn’t think of the last time I had a meaningful conversation. It had been me and my thoughts for far too long.

Keeping all that in mind, I perked up when the whole room got quiet and looked to the door. That was the usual reaction to omnics around bars. It’s not like they could enjoy a fine alcoholic beverage, so all they could be looking for was trouble. I could work with trouble.

This guy was especially eye-catching. He was customized, head to toe. All sorts of whites and silvers and greens, accents here and there. Looked built to fight. And I’d never seen an omnic with a face shaped like that, with those horn looking things. 

On the topic of his face. It was all too familiar, but I couldn’t put my damn finger on it.

I gave him a nod and patted the seat next to me. With hesitation, he accepted my invite. I could understand the reluctance. He had no good reason to believe I didn’t want to start a fight with him. Of course I was willing to, but I’d rather make a new friend.

He didn’t look at me when he sat down. The light above the bar was dim, but it reflected off his body. He looked fresh. A couple scratches, but no dents. A few stray raindrops were still dripping off his arms.

Again, I couldn’t stop looking at his face. Had I seen him on TV? Had he been to this bar before? It had to be something, and it was driving me crazy.

“I gotta ask,” I said, setting aside my drink, “would I happen to know you from anywhere?”

He finally looked at me, though eye contact was hard to gauge when his “eyes” were one glowing green line. “We may know each other, yes,” he said.

If I only had one piece of the 1,000 piece puzzle before, I’d just been gifted the other 999. I’d know that voice anywhere, anytime. 

“Well my God, if it ain’t Genji Shimada!” I didn’t yell it, because he didn't look like he wanted to be recognized. But it was one hell of a loud whisper.

Genji looked away from me and chuckled. “Hello to you too, Jesse McCree,” he said. His whisper was much more reserved than mine.

I gave him a pat on the back, which made a solid clang. “How ya been? You’ve gotta let me buy you a drink—or, well, not a drink—but let me do somethin’ for ya! It’s been too long.”

Genji shook his head and removed my hand from his back. “I promise you, Jesse, I do not need anything from you,” he said. His voice grew softer. “I don’t think I need anything at all.”

“Alright then,” I said. I began feeling like there was no way for me to sit comfortably in my seat. “Well, uh… I hope you’ll at least accept my company.”

He gave me a nod. “Sure.” It sounded genuine enough, but tired. 

We proceeded to sit in silence, avoiding eye contact, for upwards of 20 minutes. I nursed my beer while he nursed the tense atmosphere surrounding him.

I didn’t want to be too judgey—after all, we’d only spoken for about a minute—but he was different.

Now, that was to be expected. It had been a long time. I'd be disappointed as hell if we were both the same kids we were in our early 20’s. But in Genji’s case, he seemed worse off. Back when I knew him, he was a real spitfire. You could hardly catch him in a good mood. Now he didn’t seem as temperamental, but he also didn’t seem any happier. He seemed resigned.

“You been doing okay, buddy?” I asked. With the way Genji flinched at the broken silence, you’d think I’d popped a balloon next to his head. Besides that, he didn’t do much but serve me a blank stare. 

“I asked you how you’re doing,” I said, slower and louder, like an asshole. “You seem down.”

There was a pause, almost like he was thinking of his answer. But he didn’t seem inclined to give me one. Instead, he stood up and gave my serape a quick pull.

“Do you think you’ll be heading my way?” He asked, arms crossed.

It was an easy choice in my book.

“I don’t got any other way to go,” I said. I closed my tab and followed him out of the bar. 

He was staying nearby, a few blocks away in the opposite direction of my place. If I was staying in a flea hotel, then this was a maggot hotel. It was probably one of the only places around that would give an omnic a room. Not that Genji was an omnic, but who would know from looking at him?

I followed him up several flights of stairs until we got off at what must’ve been the 4th or 5th floor. The hallway was relatively quiet, as it seemed like most of the rooms were full of sleepy drunks. A few of them hadn’t made it inside.

The room Genji took me to was far down the way, near a rusty fire escape. It was sweltering, even this late at night, and I took off my hat to run my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair.

Genji glanced back at me as he unlocked the flimsy looking door. “My apologies for the heat. They don’t let things like me stay near the fans,” he said. “I suppose those are for real people.”

As he flipped the light switch, I counted 12 cockroaches who scurried out of sight. That was just on the couch. The walls were stained yellow-grey from years of indoor smoking, and the smell of mold was suffocating. It was a miserable place to be, but Genji didn’t seem to care. He sat down on the sagging couch and motioned for me to join him.

“New gear, I see,” Genji said, pointing to my robo-arm. Right, he hadn’t seen me since Blackwatch. Ol’ Lefty was still flesh and blood up until recently.

I wiggled my fingers with a slight mechanical whirr. “Yeah, she’s fine. She ain’t got gangrene, so that makes her better than the old one,” I said with a chuckle. “But you’re the one who should be talkin’ about fancy new parts!” I motioned up and down his body. “You’ve gotten just about everything replaced, and you look great! Like a sportscar of a man.”

Genji stayed silent for a long time, much longer than was comfortable. “I’m glad you see it that way,” he finally said with a terse nod.

Okay, I’d had it up to here. What was wrong with him? What was bothering him so much? He was like a shell of the spiteful asshole I knew, and it was tearing me apart.

“Genji, you gotta tell me what’s weighing you down so bad, I’m not lettin’ you dodge this again,” I said.

He crossed his arms and looked away. Bitch.

“I’m serious man, stop acting like a kid. You’re gonna talk to me.” I grabbed his arm and tugged. He glanced down at my hand, then back up at me.

“I can’t feel that,” he said. His voice was held back. I pulled away.

He struck both his legs and thumped his torso, each strike letting out a solid din. He looked back at me with his arms up in the air, exasperated. “I can’t feel anything. Except for up here,” he tapped the back of his head, causing the green light in his eyes to go out and the bottom half of his mask to loosen. Upon removal, I could still only see his face from the nose up. That was all that was left. His skin was thickly scarred, and looked almost gray. He thumped his fingers under his eyes. “It’s so little, but I can feel it.”

I stared at him for a while. What could I say? I couldn’t imagine what he was going through. He’d been dealing with this for years and years now, all the way back before Blackwatch. I never would’ve guessed he felt so bad.

“Y’know, I remember feeling a lot like you when I got my new arm,” I finally said. “I hated it. I thought I’d rather have a stump. But over time, I’ve grown to like her,” I ran my metal fingers through my beard. “She’s not my flesh-and-blood. But I adopted her.”

It didn’t take more than a few seconds for me to realize I’d placed my foot in my mouth. 

Genji rolled his eyes at me and shook his head. “Well, I’m glad you’ve built up such a beautiful relationship with your metal tumor,” he said. He not-so-gently smacked my arm, and I pulled away sharply. 

“Hey man, no need to get violent,” I said, holding up my hands. He gave me the angriest look, but given a moment's pause, he relaxed. He slumped into the couch with a sigh.

“I shouldn’t have taken that out on you,” he muttered. “Forgive me.”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch and nodded. “It’s fine, just don’t let it happen again.”

He thought for a moment, his eyes staring off somewhere I couldn’t see. He rubbed his hand across his face and shook his head.

“You must understand, my body has done nothing but take from me,” he began. “It took my touch, my smell, my taste. Yes, I can speak, I can hear, but it’s different. If it’s not gone, it’s different. I can’t dye my hair anymore,” he said. That last note made his voice crack, and he held his hand to his eyes. They were rimmed with tears when he pulled away. “It’s silly that it makes me that upset, but I miss it. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I can’t remember the last time I did. I feel like a monster. Like I shouldn’t exist.”

My first thought was simple: “If anyone deserves to exist, you do.” But I kept that to myself. It was too heavy handed. My second thought was, “Well your body didn’t take everything from you, it gave you your life!” But that would only make things worse. So I went with my third thought, which seemed pretty foolproof.

I wrapped my arms around him and brought him in for a big ol’ hug. I brushed my thumb against his cheek to make sure he could feel me. 

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

He gripped me so tight his arms left marks in my skin. “Thanks.” He said, as quiet as he could.

What felt like a decade later, I pulled away to look him in the eyes. They were still red and wet, but they looked a tad brighter. Hopeful? However he was feeling, he looked plenty more lively than he’d looked a couple hours ago.

“Y’know what, Genji,” I said, “I’m real glad you stuck around. You’ve got a lot to offer a world like this. More than a lot of people.”

He smiled with his eyes and looked away. “And I’m glad you’re still around,” he said. He grabbed my face and pulled it close to his. His hands almost felt warm. “If you were not right here, right now, I don’t know how long I would still be here myself. You’re something I’ve been looking for, for a long time.”

“What might that be?” I asked.

Genji laughed—a happy laugh, something I hadn’t heard in ages—and touched his nose to mine. “A great friend.”

I blushed. And I smiled.

No one ever said happiness was cheap. But sometimes, it was priceless.

**Author's Note:**

> My first (posted) Overwatch fic! Thanks for reading. :) Feedback is, of course, appreciated.


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